The Swedish government has dismissed the board of the Karolinska Institute which awards the Nobel Prize for Medicine.  This comes after a scandal involving an alleged quack surgeon, numerous accusations of scientific fraud, and the death of patients.

"Scandal is the right word," declared Minister for Higher Education and Research Helene Hellmark Knutsson.  "People have been harmed because of the acting of the Karolinska Institute and also the Karolinska University Hospital," she said.

In March, Karolinska sacked Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini - a purported pioneer in artificial windpipe surgery - after a television documentary revealed video footage of operations he carried out prior to his Swedish gig in Krasnodar, Russia - the Karolinska Institute itself described as "truly alarming".  It showed Macchiarini continuing experiments with his stem cell-coated synthetic tracchea even after it showed little or no promise, exaggerating the health of his patients in articles as they died one by one.  The institute said that Macchiarini had supplied false information on his resume and was guilty of scientific negligence. 

The Swedish government announced the firings on Monday, saying that Macchiarini never should have been hired in the first place and that the Karolinska Institute's management had showed "a stunning indifference" toward a vast amount of very negative references when hiring him.  Prosecutors are now investigating Macchiarini on suspicion of gross criminal negligence and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of two patients at Swedish hospitals in 2011 and 2012.  Macchiarini is denying any wrongdoing.

Another major head to roll in this scandal in the national University Chancellor Harriet Wallberg, who was heading the Karolinska Institute when Macchiarini was hired.  Karolinska's former head of the ethics committee Bo Risberg says the Nobel Prize for Medicine just ought to be scrapped for the next couple of years while the committee regroups.  The prize money, recommends Risberg, should be used to compensate the relatives of the patients Macchiarini operated on.